Campaign of the Month:
December 2014

Karameikos

From a conversation between the Count Pro-tem of Glenargyll, Thaljun Titus to a pupil at the Great School of Magic in Glantri City, a one Wether Pimroc, overheard at the Mages Hostelry, a tavern run by practitioners from the Great School.

W. Pimroc

The year is 1002, one thousand and two years since the crowning of the first Thyatian emperor. Our history goes back much further. We live now in Glantri, but Karameikos is the land of our families. Up until thirty years ago, it was Traldar, a frontier of the Thyatian empire. That is when the Duke Karameikos claimed it, and everything changed. Much of the duchy is still wild, but the brave see danger as opportunity. That land has a bright future if the Traldarans and Thyatians can cooperate to build a greater country.

That is not the greatest change, however, that we have seen, nor is this the first time we have lived through AC 1002. In fact, our tale goes back five thousand years to the age of Blackmoor. Little is known of this early civilization of man. Ask someone who’s even heard of it, and you’re likely to hear tall tales about beastmen and frog cults. Ridiculous, isn’t it? Not much survived its cataclysmic end, but that’s not what this story is about. It’s about a ship, a fantastic vessel that traveled among the stars. Five thousand years ago it crashed near Blackmoor on Mystara… that’s the name of our world, our “planet,” but it’s a name only scholars learn. This ship of the stars brought with it strange and immense powers, powers that inexorably changed our world.

How do we know all this? That’s a sharp question. It takes us back to the beginning of our story. This part’s not for the ears of others, and I’ll trust you to keep it silent. Who would believe you besides? We were born in an alternate timeline. You see, this ship’s powers changed the nature of magic in Mystara. We know little of that, but we do know some Immortals in the original timeline didn’t like that. They convinced their followers it would drain the world of life, and they entreated a band of heroes to travel back in time to destroy the ship before its powers could unfold. In that original timeline, they succeeded, but their success had an even greater effect on magic. Without the ship’s power, the Principalities of Glantri never came to exist, and Mystara turned against the arcane. Wizard, elf, and dragon alike were thrown down. Priests of the Immortals hunted and burned practitioners alive to “preserve the sanctity of life.” That created the alternate timeline, and that is the reality to which we were born, which brings us to the answer to your question.

How is it that we know all this… Within a keep in the mountains of the Republic of Darokin, we freed a man from a mirror shield. His name was Rheddrian, and he had been trapped in the shield for five thousand years. For you see, he was an engineer from the ship of stars, yes, the very same one I told you crashed in Blackmoor. Somehow he fused into the shield when his ship exploded. It was he who told us the truth of our world. We realized… if we could prevent the ship’s destruction by the heroes in the past, we could restore the original timeline. There, our kind would not be persecuted for the pursuit of magic.

With Rheddrian’s help in AC 1002, we traveled back five thousand years in close pursuit of the heroes sent to destroy the ship. Battling past demons set by Immortals to guard the timeline from further meddling, we convinced the heroes that to destroy the ship would change the world in terrible ways. In so doing, we returned to the year 1000, the right and original timeline continued, and Magic was restored to its rightful place in the world. That was two years ago, and yes, that explains how this year marks our second time through AC 1002. I know. I wouldn’t believe it either, but it’s a grand tale nonetheless. Here, let me pour you another Mandrake Liquer. By morning you’ll have forgotten this fairy tale.